Embarrassment as new pope admits, ‘I can’t speak a word of Latin’

Pope Francis is facing controversy on his first day in office after admitting that he doesn’t know a single word of Latin.

‘To be honest, I’ve been winging it for years’, he explained. ‘When you’re young you don’t really think about being pope, so I dropped Latin and did Domestic Science and Woodwork instead.

‘But when they told me I’d won I was like, shit, I can’t speak any Latin, what am I going to say, lol. I thought about muttering a few words and then adding ‘um’ to the end of them, but in the end I just said the Lord’s Prayer. That usually gets the crowd going.’

However, His Holiness has committed to make amends by making learning the language a top priority. ‘Fortunately there’s a chapter on basic Latin in my ‘Papacy For Dummies’ book, so I’m going to get cracking right away.’

This was the second embarrassment for the new pontiff, who blamed his being ‘tired and emotional after two days conclaving’ for greeting the massed crowds in St Peter’s Square with the words ‘Yo Vatican! Make some fucking noise!’